From canopy to seed: Loss of snow drives directional changes in forest composition.

ABSTRACT: Climate change is altering the conditions for tree recruitment, growth, and survival, and impacting forest community composition. Across southeast Alaska, USA, and British Columbia, Canada, Callitropsis nootkatensis (Alaska yellow-cedar) is experiencing extensive climate change-induced canopy mortality due to fine-root death during soil freezing events following warmer winters and the loss of insulating snowpack. Here, we examine the effects of ongoing, climate-driven canopy mortality on forest community composition and identify potential shifts in stand trajectories due to the loss of a single canopy species. We sampled canopy and regenerating forest communities across the extent of C. nootkatensis decline in southeast Alaska to quantify the effects of climate, community, an

SUBMITTER: Bisbing SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6662406 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature